About Judson Adonirum Tolman, Sr.

Judson Adonirum Tolman (1826 - 1916), son of Nathan Tolman (born 1788) and Sarah Hewitt (born 1789), was born 14 July 1826 at Hope, Lincoln County, Maine; he died at the age of 89 on 6 July 1916 at Bountiful,Davis County, Utah, and was buried at Bountiful Memorial Park. He served as an LDS High Priest; Patriarch; President of the High Priests quorum; and a missionary to Maine in 1877. He was one of the first settlers in Tooele County and city, an Indian war veteran, a member of the Nauvoo Legion; and a minuteman.

Eleanor Odd Williams, married sometime between 1904 and 1908; her children by her previous husband were sealed to Judson Adonirum Tolman, Sr., in 1908. No known children of this marriage.

Biographical Sketch

Early Life

In 1837, when Judson Adonirum Tolman was eleven years old, his family moved from Kennebec County, Maine, to Iowa. In 1844 his father died, and on 12 January 1845 he was baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was ordained a Seventy only three months after his baptism. Within a year he had moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Mormons had built a beautiful city. As a young man not yet twenty he met, fell in love with, and married Sarah Lucretia Holbrook (married 12 January 1846). She was the daughter of Joseph and Nancy Lampson Holbrook.

Joyful Pioneers

Within two weeks of his marriage Judson left Nauvoo without his bride to serve with the Hosea Stout Company in pioneering the route across Iowa to Council Bluffs. This was the vanguard group who prepared the way for the exodus of the Mormons from Nauvoo to eventually settle in Utah. He helped build bridges, roads, and in guarding the group from its enemies. In the late spring of that year he returned to Nauvoo for his wife, joining with her father, Joseph Holbrook, in moving to a temporary settlement at Winter Quarters. For over two years they struggled, sacrificed, and subsisted in an area that was then primarily a wilderness. As they traveled and endured these hardships they were "joyful" nonetheless.

From the journal of Joseph Holbrook:

"April 20th (1847) traveled six miles and met my family with their wagon stuck in the mud on a small branch (stream) all alone. Found my family all well, almost out of bread stuff of every description and so had some corn meal for them. Judson Tolman, my son-in-law who had left me to return to his family had helped move my family with his own. He buried his only child, a daughter about two weeks old, two or three days before at the burying grounds on the bluffs near Punkas, where about twenty-three of our brethren and sisters had been buried during our short stay in that place. Yet in all our tribulations, we felt joyful."

Although Judson Tolman and Joseph Holbrook and their families were ready to begin the trek to Utah in late 1847, they were encouraged to wait until the spring of 1848. Brigham Young wanted an advance party to establish a colony before families were brought to Utah. A year later on 20 September 1848 Judson Tolman arrived in Salt Lake Valley as a member of the Brigham Young Company and the Daniel Garn Fifty. He was in company with his two brothers, Cyrus and Benjamin, and the Joseph Holbrook family.

The Great Salt Lake Valley

The first winter in the valley was described by Alice Leone Patterson Wilkinson in her history of Judson Tolman:

"Judson Tolman's first home here was a little dugout in the Ninth Ward. A great many hardships had to be borne that winter on account of the scarcity of crops. They were obliged to live for six weeks on nothing but wild onions and milk. The next year the crops were very successful. From one peck of seed, he raised twenty-five bushels of potatoes. About the first of July the first barley was ripe and they ground it and made bread, the first they had had for a long time. In July 1849 Judson left Salt Lake City and located in Bountiful, Davis County, having asked for the privilege of taking up a farm, he built a house there."

Judson went to Tooele with Josiah Call and Samuel Meacham, where he built a sawmill. In his own words here is a description of his activities in these early days of Utah,

"I helped to fight the crickets in 1849 and that year, together with two other families, settled in Tooele, Utah. We were the first settlers there. In 1850 I was one of a company of thirty-one called by Brigham Young to serve as guard on the Southwestern frontiers of Utah, under Captain Phineus White. I served three and one-half years in that capacity and was in battles with the Indians... In 1852 the Indians took the last yoke of oxen and cow I had. In the fall of 1854 I moved to Bountiful, Utah."

His move from Tooele to Bountiful was apparently encouraged by the loss of much of his goods to the Indians. His home for the rest of his life was in Bountiful, farming and lumbering. He built and operated four or five sawmills in the vicinity.

Heber C. Kimball prophesied that goods would be had cheaply and in abundance in the Salt Lake Valley. This prophesy was fulfilled when the Gold Rush to California in 1849 brought people through Utah in great numbers. Judson Tolman records that he sold an Indian pony for a one-hundred-dollar wagon and harness. He saw his crops threatened by grasshoppers and describes a simple technique as a remedy: Two men stretching a long rope across a field would move it along frightening the insects off the field into the Great Salt Lake where the grasshopper would die. Part of the crop could be preserved in this way. He speaks of "Uncle Sam's Army," a reference to the coming of Johnston's army to Utah. On this occasion he moved his family to Provo and stood with the Saints, ready to put to the torch all his earthy possessions to prevent their falling into the hands of an invading army.

Faithful Service

Judson Tolman was a faithful servant in his church duties. He was ordained a Seventy in February 1846, a singular honor for one so new a member of the church. He accepted the principle of plural marriage as a divine law. In 1877, when fifty years of age, he accepted a call to serve as a missionary in his native Maine. From Leone Wilkinson's history,

"Like most missionaries his enemies tried to overcome him, but he was always gifted with a ready answer. Once a sectarian minister after having railed the Mormons uselessly, finally said, "Well what about the Mountain Meadow Massacre? You can't uphold your people there." Brother Tolman answered, "I will take a Yankee's privilege and answer you by asking another question. Do you remember the Haun's Mill Massacre? It was mostly Methodists who did that work. Are you going to blame the Methodists for that, or the men who did it?" The minister answered, "Why the men who did it, of course." "Then," said Brother Tolman, "be as lenient to the poor deluded Mormons."

Married Life

Sarah Lucretia Holbrook was Judson's first wife. These two suffered, sacrificed, and rejoiced in their life together. They had fourteen children in twenty-three years. She died in 1869, at age 47.

Judson's second wife was Mary Peeves Coleman. They were married in 1852. Mary was the widow of George Coleman, who had lost his life in the Mormon Battalion. No record of children has been found. There is a church record that the marriage was canceled on the 26th of January 1857.

In 1856 Judson married Sophia Merrell. They had four children. In 1869 Sophia left the home in Bountiful and moved to Plymouth, Cache County, Utah. Records indicate that this marriage was canceled by the church in 1869 and again in 1874. Sophia then married Garret Hopkins Wolverton. She died in childbirth in 1875. The cancellation of the marriage of Judson and Sophia may be coincident with a visit that Sophia Merrell paid Brigham Young in 1869; a divorce may have been granted as a consequence of a conversation during this visit.

Judson's fourth wife was Zibiah Jane Stoker, a young lady who came to fill the void left by the loss of Sarah Lucretia. Not only did she mother the older family, some of whom were older than she was, but she bore Judson eleven children of her own. Her home was remembered by the grandchildren as one in which you were always welcome. She was a generous and loving wife and mother. It is difficult for us to conceive of a girl assuming so much responsibility at the tender age of fourteen. She outlived her husband ten years. She was, apparently, the heir to Judson's books and personal journal.

Polygamy and Excommunication

The practice of polygamy was officially abolished by the Church in the Woodruff Manifesto of 1890. The problems this created can be readily understood. Those who were members of these families could not abandon this relationship without serious hardship. It took a generation for the practice to die out. There were some in the Church that did not accept the Manifesto.

Some of the older brethren continued to perform plural marriages. By 1903 President Joseph F. Smith of the LDS Church issued a decree that the practice must stop, and that examples would be made of men who persisted in defying the Manifesto. Excommunication became the consequence to several who refused to accept the revocation of what to them was an eternal principle.

On the 3rd of October in 1910 Judson Tolman lost his most precious possession: his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was charged with performing plural marriages, for marrying illegally himself, and for lying about it. This is a matter of record in the Historical Record Book A: 1909 to 1919, of the Bountiful First Ward, Davis Stake.

Records concerning his excommunication indicate he apparently performed plural marriages, contrary to instructions. The children of Eleanor Odd Williams were sealed to Judson Tolman in the Nauvoo Temple in 1908; therefore, Judson and Eleanor Williams must have been married sometime between 1904 and 1908. Although no direct record of this marriage has been found, Judson was charged with having married illegally so it seems that the illegal wife was Eleanor Williams.

Temple Blessings and Priesthood Restored

On the 14th of February 1912 Judson was baptized by his son, Jaren Tolman; and confirmed a member of the Church by Joseph H. Grant, Davis Stake President. This not only confirms his excommunication, it reflects a desire to be re-fellowshipped in the Church. Though he was known until his death as Patriarch Tolman, he never in life regained the blessings of the priesthood. He died 6 July 1916. Funeral services were held in the Bountiful Tabernacle on 9 July 1916, one week before his ninetieth birthday.

Special request was made by his descendants to have his temple blessings restored, although this did not happen until 1981. Through the efforts of various cousins, the restoration of Judson's priesthood was accomplished 24 September 1981.

Marriage Date: 20 Dec 1852; Marriage Place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah; Spouse: Mary Reeves; Children: Jaren Tolman; Esther Jane Tolman; Charles Nathan Tolman; Sarah Elvira. [Note: this record is incorrect in that there were no children of this marriage; these were the children of Judson Tolman's first and third wives.]

Marriage Date: 5 Apr 1869; Marriage Place: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah; Spouse: Zibiah Jane Stoker; Children: Jaren Tolman; Esther Jane Tolman; Charles Nathan Tolman; Sarah Elvira. [Note: this record is incorrect in that, although there were eleven children of this marriage, none of these were born to Zibiah Jane Stoker Tolman; these were the children of Judson Tolman's first and third wives.]

Marriage Date: 1908; Spouse: Eleanor Odd; Children: Jaren Tolman; Esther Jane Tolman; Charles Nathan Tolman; Sarah Elvira. [Note: this record is incorrect in that there were no children of this marriage; these were the children of Judson Tolman's first and third wives.]

Source Information: Yates Publishing. U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2004. Original data: This unique collection of records was extracted from a variety of sources including family group sheets and electronic databases. Originally, the information was derived from an array of materials including pedigree charts, family history articles, querie.